Easter Traditions

The NCP The NCP

There are lots of Easter traditions all around the world. Here is a list of Easter traditions you may not have heard of from around the world:

In Bermuda, kids make their own kites and fly them on Good Friday. Legend has it, the tradition started when a local teacher had trouble explaining Jesus’s resurrection to his Sunday school class. So, he made a kite to explain the concept.

In areas of North-western Europe, local people used to light bonfires as a way to chase the cold Winter away on Easter Sunday or Monday. Now, they light them to bring the community together. These are called ‘Easter Fires’. In Finland, kids will put on old clothes and dress up as ‘Easter witches’. Similar to Halloween, they go around the neighbourhood. However, they trade their artwork for sweets.

In Haux, France, residents serve a giant omelette on Easter Monday. They use more than 4,500 eggs and feed up to 1,000 people!

In Australia, United Kingdom and United States of America, kids can decorate their own bonnets with bunny ears, chickens, eggs, chocolate, or flowers. They would then participate in ‘Easter bonnet parades’.

In Greece, people that celebrate Easter in the Orthodox church, dye eggs red. The crimson hued eggs are particularly symbolic since they use the eggs to represent rebirth and the colour red for Jesus' blood, marking the triumphant return of the son of God. People can get very creative with their red eggs, creating different shades, intricate designs, and more.

In Ethiopia, Christians tend to fast in Easter and turn vegan, similar to Lent in the Western church. ‘Fasika’, which is the Amharic word for Easter, and refers to the 55-day period leading up to Easter Sunday.

In Guatemala, the Southern town Antigua covers the streets in colourful carpets in preparation for its Good Friday procession. The long carpets are made from flowers, coloured sawdust, fruits, vegetables, and sand. Each carpet is often covered in scenes that are important to the artists who make them, ranging from religion to Mayan traditions to Guatemalan history. Some of these pieces can stretch as long as half a mile, and artists use stencils to assemble them quickly since they have just 24 hours to create their works of art the day before the Good Friday procession.

In Florence, Italy, locals celebrate a firework display. This is a 350-year-old Easter tradition known as ‘Scoppio del Carro’, or "explosion of the cart" that dates all the way back to the First Crusade.

In Norway, people tend to spend the holiday in a cabin and ski. They enjoy reading an enjoyable book and the tradition is that they read crime books or watch crime films or shows on TV.

By Niamh Holland

By Rachel O’Rourke

This year was a huge year for Ireland in the Oscar’s, with success from Ross White and Tom Berkeley’s “An Irish Goodbye” winning best live action short, along with Richard Baneham, from Tallaght, getting his second Oscar for visual effects for his work on Avatar: The Way of Water.

With a record breaking amount of 14 nominations for Irish people and films ,sadly did not all deliver with only Richard and “An Irish Goodbye” being the only winners.

The victory for “An Irish Goodbye” did deliver one of the greatest Oscar moments that has gone viral all over the world. With Ross White saying “ There’s something very important I’d like to speak about . This award is actually the second most important thing about today, because it is this man’s birthday!” He then gestured towards one of the films stars James Martin, who has Down syndrome, and the whole auditorium began to sing a rendition of Happy Birthday to James. Which has warmed a lot of viewers hearts.

There was another great moment for Ireland with “An Cailín Ciúin” (The Quiet Girl) being the first time an Irish language feature film has ever been nominated for the Oscar’s. This is a great moment for not just Irish film but Ireland as a whole as it shows that Irish is still a thriving language with the whole cast of this film all being fluent Irish speakers and bringing a lot of attention to the Irish language across the world. Another great moment for Ireland was “The Banshees of Inisherin” racking up 9 nominations, somehow walking away with no wins.

It had a great chance at winning best original screenplay but was crushed by the film that was on a roll, “Everything Everywhere All At Once” that won seven Oscar’s. Kerry Condon had huge chances at winning best supporting actress but lost to Jamie Lee Curtis also from “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.

Jimmy Kimmell was hosting this years Oscar’s and during one of the times he was on stage, he led Jenny the donkey on stage ( a donkey from “The Banshees Of Inisherin”) Colin Farrell looked very surprised to see his four legged co-star take the stage. At the beginning of one of Jimmy’s monologues he acknowledged the amount of Irish nominees this year and he made the remark “It was some year for diversity.. We have nominees from all corners of Dublin..” (not entirely accurate ) “Five Irish actors are nominated here tonight, which means the odds of another fight on stage just went way up”. This slightly uncomfortable joke was one of many references to the Will Smith thumping to Chris Rock at last year’s ceremony… This year was a lot more of a relaxed affair.

Kildare’s very own Paul Mescal ,for Aftersun,was up against Colin Farrell and Brendan Fraser. Sadly Paul didn’t end up winning and lost to Brendan Fraser, who starred in “The Whale” where he portrayed a man that was 42 stone.

At the BAFTAS Paul Mescal was caught for an interview with TG4, the interviewer started the interview as Gaeilge, so Paul followed suit anxiously this moment has gone viral with comments like “I found it very emotional, The whole country is bursting with pride for Paul Mescal” arising .

Paul Mescal to many peoples disbelief was “A County Baller” (played GAA for his Country) He played Under- 21 Gaelic football for Kildare and was a member of Maynooth GAA club. Paul had a promising GAA career ahead of him but followed his dream of becoming an actor.

By Rachel O’Rourke

By Isabel Connolly

On Thursday, March 2nd, Newbridge College celebrated World Book Day 2023.

Promoting literacy and encouraging students to read for pleasure has always been a priority in our school.

Newbridge College received the PDST WELLREAD Award in 2019, which was a massive achievement!

To celebrate the day and promote reading throughout our school, we launched a number of competitions, including the ‘Decorate your Classroom Door’ competition, ‘‘Design your own Book Cover’ competition and ran a special World Book Day Treasure Hunt. Teachers also took their classes to the library that day to encourage them to pick a book that they might enjoy reading.

Staff enjoyed some lovely World Book Day cake on their coffee break too (lucky!), in exchange for writing down their book recommendations, so we could promote reading within our staff room.

The NCP

The Library Prefects judged all competitions and as the standard was quite high, they had a difficult job deciding on the best entries however, they settled on the following...